Theory in action

A specialised outcome of the centre is a collection of practices and people who are trained in advanced reflexive methods of practice and inquiry. The centre's work has emerged from the former Centre for Communication and Ethics in International Business and the work of Crucible Research which received funding over a period of five years to develop a set of theory and practices for radical management practice. This was leading edge research into how to introduce ethical reflexive practice into organizations.

Furthermore, some of the current research students based at the centre take the fruit of their study directly into the workplace through their practice, which in itself begins a process of diffusion. The Centre holds meetings for researchers and practitioners alike, and subsequently in the workplace.

The Director of the Centre, Dr Bronwen Rees is regularly invited to deliver workshops and seminars on the Centre's emergent work. She also externally supervised a successful PhD on sustainable business practices in the States called the 'Business Alliance for Local Living Economies' which was undertaken in Thailand, thus integrating theory and practice across cultures, disciplines and theologies. She has been invited to deliver workshops in the US (Portland State University), Hungary and Thailand on a variety of different subjects, and in 2011 will present the work on holonomic inquiry at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas.

In all, the work is meeting the needs of organisations wishing to develop more sustainable and ethical practices. The Centre can design and develop generic or bespoke training for social and corporate entrepreneurs, based on the collective research of its international community. Members of the Centre are available to run workshops and seminars in business based on their own practice. Breakfast seminars can be organised to help disseminate this work and creative collaborative dialogue with businesses.

Principal areas of interest and research

• Chaos and complexity theory as related to organisations
• Critical management theory
• Eastern and Western thinking: differences and integrations
• Economic systems and their relationship to political institutions (systems thinking)
• Evolutionary principles of emergence and change
• Group work and evolutionary principles
• Heterodox economics
• Mindful economics
• Buddhist economics
• Principles of field dynamics as manifest in organisations
• Psychology and relationship
• Research methods and holonomic forms of inquiry
• Fractal marketing and the energies of diffusion

• Professor Joel Magnuson, Portland State University, US
• Professor John Nirenberg, Walden University, US
• Professor Chris Brewster, Reading University and Henley Management College
• Professor Laszlo Zolnai, Corvinus University, Budapest
• Professor Apichai Puntasen, Ubon Ratachanee University, Thailand
• Professor Jack Reardon, Hamline University, US
• D Linda Nowakowski, Ubon Ratachanee University Thailand,
• Dr Richard House, Roehampton University, UK
• Dr Tamas Agocs, Vice Rector, Budapest Buddhist University
• Professor Sebastien Green, Cork University, Ireland
• Professor Michal Lewis